Elizabeth McKinney

Dr. Babbitt
English 2091
5-3-12
From Cubism to Vorticism to Dada:
How montage and shapes developed over the years
Throughout the history of film, and even poetry and art, the use of montage has been
utilized greatly for visual, emotional, and physical effects on the viewers. Directors use montage
to attract viewers and to have the audience sympathize with the characters and plot. Over the
years, however, montage has become less focused on characters and objects and more on shapes
and colors, and this evolution can be traced from Cubism, through Vorticism, to Dadaism.
Cubisms montage techniques can be found best in the films of George Mlis,
specifically his film The Living Playing Cards. This film shows a magicians act of bringing lifesized playing cards to life. The magician first holds up a playing card and then slides his hands
towards each side, mimicking stretching the card out. After he does this to all four sides, the card
suddenly doubles in size. This abrupt growth shocks the viewer and makes them believe it really
is magic. The next instance of montage is when the magician holds the playing card he has just
caused to grow up to a large white board. After just holding the card there for a moment, the card
disappears from his hand and appears on the board. Here, the montage is two-fold. First is the
contrast between the white board and the black of the card and the magicians clothes. Second is
the transfer of the card from the magicians hand to the board. Both of these instances are jarring
transitions, meant to catch the viewers attention and, again, convince them of the magic being
performed: there seems to be not enough time in the transition for it to simply be a trick,
therefore it must be magic. In this film, the montage is used only on the objects central to the
magicians act; it helps to develop the plot of the magic show and grabs the audiences attention,
shocking them into feeling what the director and magician want them to feel.

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The use of montage by Vorticists is slightly different, as they started to incorporate shapes
and disconnected objects into their films. An example of this is Fernand Legers Ballet
Mcanique. This film uses a kaleidoscope type of imagery for part of the film: the image is cut
into pieces, like a puzzle, so both the object of interest itself and the background are visible, and
then mixed up and flipped around, to provide a somewhat disorienting depiction, but still an
obvious representation, of the image. The pictures that are presented, although rearranged
which is a thoroughly Cubist ideaare still easily recognizable to the viewer. For example, a
womans face is shown several times throughout the film. At first, the spectator is shown the
whole face; later, just the mouth and chin, and at another point, the whole face again, but this
time it is as if it is being seen through a kaleidoscope. The film also incorporates shapes: besides
the geometric shapes of the kaleidoscope images, circles and triangles are also shown. The
shapes create a montage between the other images and between the plain backgrounds of the
film. The blank screen behind is a sharp contrast to the shape, and the shape stands out much
more than it would have if it were against a patterned screen or if it were presented in the
kaleidoscope fashion. The other images, which are mostly three-dimensional, are contrasted by
the obviously flat, one-dimensionality of the shapes. This use of montage, while still allowing the
viewer to connect with familiar images, moves slightly away from that familiarity with its use of
a kaleidoscope pattern and repetition of geometric shapes.
Dadaism, still, moves further away from the Cubist ideas of montage. The films
Rhythmus 21, by Hans Richter, and Komposition in Blau, by Oskar Fischinger, use only
geometric shapes. While Rhythmus 21 uses black and white and a variety of shapes, Komposition
in Blau uses several colors, with blue and orange being the most prominent, and only rectangles.
Rhythmus 21s use of montage offers little connection for the viewer. Circles, squares, and

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triangles flash across the screen in varying order and speed. Komposition in Blau, however, uses
color for its main montage technique, which does provide some sort of connection for the
audience: the blue background of the film is a soothing color, and it relaxes the audience until the
orange rectangles come sliding quickly onto the screen. The quick, surprising transition and
bright orange color, as well as the speed at which the blocks move, is the montage that the
audience needed to wake up from the calming blue. Both of these films, while very different
from the Cubist films, are still related to Vorticist films because they all incorporate shapes.
However, they have moved almost completely away from trying to help the audience connect
more completely with the objects in the film.
As is apparent, the three film genres have varying montage techniques that work towards
affecting the audience. While all are indeed effective in their own way, the effectiveness is less
and less as the use of montage develops and evolves. The Dadaist films have completely moved
away from the emotional connection the audience that Cubist films tried to create: Mliss films
wanted to make the audience like and enjoy watching the magician and believe in the magic
tricks being performed, but Rhythmus 21 and Komposition in Blau use shapes and color to startle
the viewer into paying attention. Vorticist films provide a nice bridge between these two genres
with Ballet Mcaniques use of both familiar, relatable objects such as the womans face and the
unusualat least in filmsblack and white geometric shapes. Each of these films use montage
in their own way, and each provide a testament to just how much film aesthetics such as montage
can change as the years pass.

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